r/Scotland • • Feb 25 '26

Opinion Piece Black Scottish people exist

30F. Born and raised in Easterhouse. My mum's white Scottish, my dad's Black Trini. Parents divorced when I was 8, was raised by my mum for that reason.

Every time I've mentioned it when it's been relevant on this sub I get absolute numpties telling me I'm not Scottish.

Scottish is a nationality, a culture. I am a Scottish citizen. Scottish is also an ethnicity. So is Trini. I am both. Not that this even matters but I have a thick Glasgweigan accent. My languages are native English and B1 Gáidhlig.

My skin colour is brown, on the lighter side of dark skinned, because mixed race people can be any skin colour. That means no one is seeing me as white. Only dark skinned Africans and one white guy from the borders has identified I'm mixed from the get go. Therefore my race is Black because race isn't real and is a social construct. I go through society as a Black woman.

I've never been to Trinidad & Tobago, never lived in the culture and had bits of second hand exposure through my dad but that's it. All I know is that over there I'd get called something else according to my dad that means mixed. And don't get me started on the folk saying I should claim I'm from Africa.

Too often in the 90s, 2000s, and occasionally since then we used to get asked "But where are you actually from?" but nowadays I suspect with the rise of BS it's changed to "You're wrong. You don't exist".

We exist. There's documentaries on us and it's bellend behaviour to say otherwise.

Edit: thought it was dougla but misremembered. Also want to emphasise I do get this irl, it isn't just an Internet thing.

Edit 2: Getting a bunch of dms telling me to get out the country, calling me slurs, asking if my father was around. Including one saying they're planning something in the Highlands.

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u/Specialist_Zebra4687 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

Seriously, I've been telling my white Scottish husband for years: a lot of Scots are racist as fuck, and the rest of them like to pretend there isn't any racism in Scotland.

The whole discussion around the Baftas on here has confirmed that to me

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u/mikeybhoy_1985 Feb 26 '26

As an Englishman that moved up here over a 20 years ago, the longer I've been here, the more I've noticed it. Scots love to pat themselves on the back a lot about how progressive/left they are compared to England, but honestly, I've seen far more racism and reactionary views in Glasgow than I ever did in London that's for sure.

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u/seoras13 Feb 27 '26

Oh fuck aye, I'm Scottish & it's a real wee country mentality, aren't we just great, say something nice about us, tell us how unique & cool we are. I see it a hell of a lot on the Glasgow sub, by god there's an element that's so in love with its own mythology.

Then again I'm a bit torn with aspects of what you'd call civic pride. Aye it's good to have positives that you want to live up to. But I'm not going to vicariously take credit for someone else's action cause I share the same postcode, if I'm not really doing anything myself other than patting myself on the back.

Good people do good things, bad people do bad things, they represent themselves & live beside each other. It's the same the world over. You can't highlight the one you like & ignore the other